Poop 'meteor' fell from passenger jet in India, officials believe

The mass that fell from the sky — which locals thought to be a meteor — is likely a piece of frozen human waste that fell from an overhead plane, experts believe.
(Gurgaon Police/iStock)

Just one year after Indian officials began imposing fines on airlines who were found to be dumping human waste during a flight, another giant poo “meteor” has allegedly crashed down in an Indian village.

The icy, 22-plus-pound fragment reportedly landed with a “big thud” on Saturday, leading residents in the Gurgaon village of Fazilpur Badli to believe the area was struck by an “extra-terrestrial” object, the BBC reports.

"It was a very heavy icy ball of ice which dropped from the skies early on Saturday morning,” said Vivek Kalia, an official with the city of Indian city of Gurgaon. “There was big thud and people of the village came running out of their homes to find out what had happened.”

Kalia also told the BBC that he believes some villagers may have broken pieces off the icy chunk to take home, believing it was a “celestial rock.” A reporter for the Indian Express says others were sure it was a "meteor," while The Times of India added that some even kept their shards in their refrigerators, in order to preserve their finds.

Upon closer inspection, the Indian Meteorological Department concluded that the 20-plus-pound ice ball that fell from the sky was "definitely not” a meteorological phenomenon, but likely a piece of frozen human waste that leaked from an overhead plane, the BBC reports.

Kalia, who “suspect[s] strongly” that the frozen mass was indeed “blue ice” has confirmed that it has been sent off to a lab, where researchers will determine what it is.

The Indian Meteorological Department concluded that the 20-plus-pound ice ball that fell from the sky was "definitely not” a meteorological phenomenon.
(Gurgaon Police)

Late last year in December, India’s National Green Tribunal had asked a committee to collect samples of excrement that began falling down on a village near the Delhi airport, amid complaints that it was happening more and more frequently in recent years.

In 2016, the NGT had also announced that it would be issuing a fine to any airline found to be disposing of human waste in midair. Officials with India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation also planned to conduct surprise inspections on planes that had just touched down in India, to make sure their waste receptacles had not been newly emptied.

In one rare case in 2015, a chunk of falling blue ice was blamed for the injury of a 60-year-old woman in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh after it bounced off of a house and slammed into her shoulder, the Times of India reported.